‘Really! I shouldn’t have thought she was that sort of woman.’
‘What do you mean by “that sort of woman”?’
‘No offence, old chappie, be sure of that. No one admired her more than I did. I think she is, without exception, the most beautiful creature I ever saw, and as good as she is beautiful. But I fancied she was too much attached to you to accept a pension.’
‘Oh, as to that,’ said the earl, rather shamefacedly, ‘she must be provided for. I wouldn’t hear of anything else. You see, Castelton, you mustn’t think me a brute; but it was on the cards that sooner or later I should marry. My uncles were always at me about the necessity of an heir, and all that sort of thing; and I suppose it is the penalty of inheriting a title, that one must think of carrying it on. You know I was fond of the woman—very fond, at one time—so was she of me, but it had gone on long enough. Sterndale has managed the business for me. I don’t know that I should have had enough nerve to do it for myself. But it’s all happily ended by this time, and I’m going to give up such frivolities for the future!’
‘Of course, of course—naturally,’ said his friend.
But when Lord Ilfracombe met his wife in the sanctity of their state-cabin, he alluded again to the subject of Jack Portland.
‘It’s the most extraordinary thing in the world to me, Nora,’ he commenced, ‘that Jack has not told me that he met you in Malta. For I have had two letters from him since our marriage.’
‘Most likely he did not remember my name,’ replied Nora; ‘I was hardly out of the nursery then, remember!’
‘What! at eighteen? Nonsense! You are not a woman for a man to see and forget. He has never said that he met your father. And that you should have never spoken his name, beats me altogether.’
‘Why, you never mentioned him yourself till to-day,’ she retorted. ‘Considering he is such an intimate friend of yours, is that not more wonderful than the other?’